Cyber-Attack Countermeasures - Essay Example

The paper "Cyber-Attack Countermeasures" is a delightful example of an essay on information technology. Cybersecurity entails the maintaining and protection of computer systems and the information they contain from intrusion, disruption, or malicious damage. Since computer networks have become key elements in both business activities and the running of governments, tampering with them could have grave consequences for organizations, firms, and individuals (Kosat et al., 2010). The question to what degree these individual-level concerns translate into risk for critical infrastructure brought about the coining of the term “Digital Pearl Harbor” in the mid-1990s which referred to the predictions of a world where hackers would plunge capitals into blackness, poison water supplies, open floodgates, not to mention cause aircrafts to crash into each other. Although the idea could have been far-fetched, nothing is far from the truth and countermeasures need to be developed.

It is for a fact that cyber-attack have never produced results predicted by the “Digital Pearl Harbor” in spite of being thousands of them. Nonetheless, cyber-attacks remain a cause for concern, and there is a need to counter them. Being prepared is a measure by itself. The process of preparation is an ever-ongoing process. It necessitates sharpening the tools used to identify and handle security glitches (Giani et al., 2011). It covers not only the implementation but also the operation of the tools, collecting and sharing information, building recommendations for toughening systems and avoiding network vulnerabilities. At this point, it should be underscored that maintaining a close link with IT Risk management is imperative.
Secondly, if an incident happens, the most important thing the victim should do is detect it in a timely fashion. Having working and up-to-date sources of information such as vulnerability reports, and centralized log information originating from access management systems, firewalls, proxies, DNS servers, and so on is crucial. Identifying a threat is critical as it helps in its classification, allowing the victim to establish a procedure of dealing with it (Li et al., 2012).
Conclusively, most victims of cyber-attacks have gone through the process due to using obsolete computer technologies to protect themselves from dynamic cyber –attacks. The situation is worsened by a poor detection method. In other words, some victims do not even realize their network systems have vulnerabilities leading to dire consequences from their part. Read More